Ohio State sophomore Sam Thompson said coach Thad Matta "loves the alley-oop" and as he has improved his chemistry with his teammates, Thompson has had more opportunities for big dunks. He's not confident about how he'd do in a major slam dunk contest now, because of his lack of prop dunks, but in games, he's hard to match. Here are his five best dunks as a Buckeye.

1. Jan. 13, 2013, in a 56-53 home win over Michigan: Context matters. And that's what puts this fastbreak alley-oop from Shannon Scott at the top of the list. "That's one of my favorites because of the magnitude of the game, the rivalry, the way the game played out," Thompson said. "That Michigan dunk is hanging in there as one of my favorites." With just over six minutes to play, Scott had the chemistry with Thompson to throw him a lob and streaking down the right wing, Thompson slammed it down with one hand to extend the lead to three. See end of post.

2. Jan. 8, 2013, in a 74-64 road win at Purdue: As teammate Evan Ravenel said, the Buckeyes got used to Thompson dunking in practice, but this one proved something, as Thompson took the ball right at, and over, Purdue 7-footer A.J. Hammons with a baseline drive. "When he does stuff in games, it's even more exciting. Before Sam would literally never dunk on somebody," Ravenel said. "He would either beat them to the rim or the person wouldn't jump. When he dunked on the guy from Purdue, I was like, 'I can't say nothing to you no more.'" When he gets to where he can jump through people, it's going to be unreal." Watch it

3.Dec. 31, 2011, in a 74-70 road loss at Indiana: This one put the freshman on the map. And it could make a case for No. 1. Rolling in from the foul line, Thompson had to reach back with his right hand to pull in a slightly off-target inbounds lob from Aaron Craft before pounding it home. There's one reason Thompson doesn't like it as much. "We lost the game. So there's kind of an asterisk with that dunk." Watch it

4. Jan. 2, 2103, in a 70-44 home win over Nebraska: It's another alley-oop and another slightly off-target pass. This was also from Scott, and Thompson extended to catch the ball one-handed and fire it home. Thompson had a brief moment to pose with the ball in the air, and teammate Deshaun Thomas after the game called in Thompson's best at that time. "He caught it, he signed it," Thomas said. Watch it

5. Dec. 15, 2012, in a 90-72 home win over UNC Asheville: Much of Thompson's best work comes on alley-oops, but on this one, he caught a pass ahead of the pack and brought the Buckeyes off the bench with a windmill slam as Ohio State held a comfortable second-half lead. Watch it

-- Doug Lesmerises

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Marcus Jordan, a high school teammate in Chicago, sometimes called him “Air Thompson,” which wasn't all that original, but the nickname carried some weight because that's what others had called Jordan's father.

And Michael Jordan saw Ohio State sophomore Sam Thompson dunk.

Hubert Thompson said he was sitting behind the elder Jordan during a Whitney Young Magnet High School game when his son was called for a technical for hanging on the rim after a dunk.

Mike Irvin, Thompson's AAU coach in Chicago, said he'd joke with Air Jordan that Air Thompson could outdunk him. Dunkers might understand each other in a way the rest of us don't, but that was a bit much.

But in a city where basketball talent is piled as deep as the winter's snowdrifts, Thompson flies to the top of the heap, reporting a 46-inch vertical jump, confirmed by Ohio State strength and conditioning coach Dave Richardson, that leaves him in rare company. Check the multi-step jump numbers at the yearly NBA draft combine, and you don't find a lot of 46's.

As No. 11 Ohio State (13-3, 3-1 Big Ten) prepares to play at No. 18 Michigan State (15-3, 4-1) Saturday, it's fair to expect at least one moment of airborne excellence from Thompson, who doesn't understand exactly how he learned to fly but realizes that what he does is outside the norm of even the elite athletes in major college basketball.

“If he was 6-10, he'd be looking like Blake Griffin out there with dunks,” OSU teammate Deshaun Thomas said, comparing Thompson to the 2011 NBA dunk champ. “I wish I had his athleticism. With my skills and his athleticism? Man, it would be crazy.”

Thad Matta said he's never coached someone who jumps like Thompson, and Richardson hasn't recorded a comparable vertical. Thompson wowed teammates in practice last year while averaging just two points and 11 minutes off the bench. He jumped over CBS analyst Seth Davis during a preseason practice, a photo of which Davis has put on Twitter more than once.

“There's an asterisk with that,” Thompson said. “Seth's a good dude, and he's my guy. But he's about 5-5. I don't think I'm the only guy who could jump over Seth Davis.”

At 6-foot-7 and 195 pounds, Thompson's jersey slides off him like his upper body is no more than a hanger. He has trouble keeping up his weight, with Richardson reminding him to continue eating.

“He's thin. He's always been thin,” Irvin said.

So he's a finesse dunker, pulled upward like a marionette operated by strings from above.

“Guys have told me that I just glide,” Thompson said.

It takes those who saw it develop to bring some sense to Thompson's flights. There were there gutters he tore down, the windows he broke trying to throw alley-oops to himself. He jumped to touch everything in his Chicago home, where he grew up with parents, his older brother, Franklin, and twin sister, Vicky. His mother, Kennise, is a psychologist and his father Hubert an attorney, the purveyors of the Air Thompson DNA.

“He chose his parents well,” Richardson said with a laugh, acknowledging the genetic combination that has led to these leaps.

That makes Hubert Thompson laugh more, his athletic accomplishments limited to some later-year triathlons to stay in shape.

“I would have been called a nerd,” Thompson said. “It must have skipped a generation.”

When jumping to touch the ceiling grew too easy, Thompson started jumping up onto things. The front porch. The trunk of his father's car.

No. 11 Ohio State at No. 18 Michigan State

Tipoff: 6 p.m. Saturday, Breslin Center, East Lansing, Mich.

TV/radio: ESPN; WKNR AM/850.

Notable: Michigan State (15-3, 4-1 Big Ten) is a tough place to play, but Big Ten teams won the first five road games of this week in conference play, and no OSU player on the current roster has lost at the Breslin Center. The Buckeyes (13-3, 3-1) will have to defend 6-10 Adreian Payne (9.0 points, 7.0 rebounds) and 6-9 Derrick Nix (10 points, 7.0 rebounds) inside, while Keith Appling vs. Aaron Craft will provide another great conference point guard matchup. After bouncing back from a tough loss at Illinois with two good wins last week, the Buckeyes will now have to handle success. The Spartans have won four straight, including a road win at Penn State on Wednesday after Payne and teammate Brandon Dawson fought at the team hotel.

Next for OSU: Tuesday vs. Iowa, 6:30 p.m.

Doug Lesmerises' prediction: Michigan State 67, Ohio State 63.

-- Doug Lesmerises

He swam and played soccer, better than he was in basketball. But when Franklin quit soccer to focus on basketball in high school, fifth-grade Sam “blindly followed,” as he usually did when it came to Franklin. He and Vicky, the older twin by five minutes, would play basketball in the driveway, and at some point she noticed she couldn't keep up any more, her brother now faster and stronger. And she remembered a fourth-grade game when the tallest guy on the team wasn't there and Sam had to jump center, giving up about six inches.

“He won the tip, and I was like 'Wow, where he did he learn to jump like that?” said Vicky, a sophomore at Xavier University of Louisiana.

Now that's what everyone says.

After his one-hand alley-oop against Nebraska on Jan. 3, teammates Thomas and Aaron Craft debated during the postgame whether it was the best dunk of Thompson's career. Then he dunked over Purdue 7-footer A.J. Hammons on Jan. 8. And he threw down a one-handed, fastbreak alley-oop from Shannon Scott when Michigan had swung the momentum and was making its second-half run on the Buckeyes last Sunday. Ohio State was up by only one point with just over six minutes to play when that one went down. The context made it Thompson's favorite yet.

And that's what's different now. Never have the dunks meant more.

In eighth grade, Vicky threw him the alley-oop pass as he won his first dunk contest. In high school, Irvin and his AAU coaches had to ask Thompson to dunk in warmups.

“He was real low-key. But we told him, 'The way you jump, the whole world wants to see you,'” Irvin said. “There were people who would come from all over to see our layup line.”

Now a starter, he's averaging 24 minutes and 7 points per game. He's so close with his family, he texts and emails with his siblings from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to bed. It's rare that a day goes by without Thompson speaking to his parents on the phone. Thompson said his brother and sister watch as much film as he does, and though Franklin, 24, said he screamed sitting in his Chicago apartment after the Michigan dunk, when the family talks, the dunks don't come up much.

So while maybe his first true dunk can't explain why Thompson can do what he does, it can explain why he is who he is.

In the driveway, Thompson raised and lowered the family's adjustable rim - 7 ½ feet, then 8, 8 ½ feet, 9, 9 ½ feet, tempting the fates at a full 10 feet at times. He figured whenever and wherever it finally happened, when he dunked for real, he'd go crazy.

“I thought I'd be excited and running around the gym and stuff,” Thompson said.

And he remembers when it happened. He was 13, and it was the spring of his seventh grade year. He was playing in a tournament in Muncie, Ind., with his AAU team, called “Ferrari.”

“A teammate threw me an alley-oop in the layup line, and I caught it with two hands and put it down,” Thompson said.

And he was excited. But he didn't scream. He didn't yell. Within three months, he'd have his dunk tricks down. But after that first one, Thompson just ran and touched halfcourt, like he was supposed to.

Follow Us

cleveland.com is powered by Plain Dealer Publishing Co. and Northeast Ohio Media Group. All rights reserved (About Us).The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Northeast Ohio Media Group LLC.